When students reach out, Clayful's mental health coaches text back within 60 seconds

Launched this week, a new app called Clayful is tackling the dire shortage of mental health support for teens. As waiting lists for therapists grow and schools can't get their hands on enough counselors to serve their students, Clayful is taking a different route. Instead of on-site professionals, the app provides a human coach by text within 60 seconds of a student asking for support.

Working with schools, Clayful meets kids where they are — on their phones. Support is provided through text chats and in real-time when and where students need help, without waiting for an appointment. "Timeliness matters," as Clayful points out, because "Pre-teens and teens experience a rollercoaster of emotions that is filled with sharp drops and quick turns." The idea is to intervene early before a problem intensifies. And, crucially, the platform's goal is to provide kids with tools and strategies that allow them to coach themselves and more easily shift out of emotional dysregulation.

In the two years Clayful spent trialing and finetuning its systems and methodologies at 50 schools across the US, the startup found that "99.5% of chats on Clayful center around daily stressors, setting goals, problem-solving and conflict resolution." If a student seems at risk of crisis, its certified coaches follow codified escalation procedures to reach out to designated school staff or the child's guardian or parent, depending on the time of day and nature of the issue.